Hollow apology shouldn't spare loutish Lott

Outraged Democrats--from Al Gore to civil rights leaders, even some editorial writers--are demanding the political head of U.S. Sen. Trent Lott.

They're saying Lott, the Mississippi Republican, should resign as incoming Senate majority leader, in reparation for stoking a political/racial controversy.

A few days ago, he made some stupid remarks that his critics interpret as praise of race-based segregation.

And, after hearing Lott shamelessly grovel all over himself on Sean Hannity's national radio program Wednesday, I've got to agree with them.

Lott has to go. He's political burnt toast, spreading his itchy crumbs all over fellow Republicans.

Whether Lott remains a senator from Mississippi is between him and his state. But if the Republicans don't wise up and squeeze him out of the Senate leadership, then their agenda will be tainted.

"I'm sorry for my words," bleated Lott in repeated apology.

"I made a mistake of the head, not the heart," Lott said, also repeatedly, while pretending he didn't know that Jesse Jackson said the same head-and-heart line after Jackson referred to New York as "Hymietown."

"I don't support those policies of the past, at all," said Lott, again and again.

Listen up Lott. Take your freshly white shirts, your Dry Look and your videotapes of you singing on stage with the Oak Ridge Boys, and get on the back of the bus, where you belong.

A few days ago, Lott paid tribute to feeble U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), at Thurmond's 100th birthday party. He said America would have been better off if Thurmond, who campaigned for the presidency in 1948 as a drooling segregationist, had won the White House.

He didn't mention drooling, I did, but Thurmond is 100 and he'll be out of a job soon.

What else can he do?

"We're proud of it," Lott said the other day, of Mississippi's support of Thurmond's anti-black presidential campaign. "And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years."

On Wednesday Lott said he never intended to endorse Thurmond's segregationist policies.

Instead, what really excited him about Thurmond in 1948 was Thurmond's support for balanced budgets, and law enforcement, and anti-Communism.

"I was seven years old when he ran for president," Lott admitted, sheepishly. " . . . When I think of Strom Thurmond, I think of defense issues."

I've got two 7-year-old sons at home. The boys don't care about defense issues. They do care about cartoons.

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota tried to defend Lott. But he cracked under pressure, reversing course to peel Lott's skin.

"Regardless of how he intended his statement to be interpreted, it was wrong to say it," Daschle said. "His words were offensive to those who believe in freedom and equality in America."

Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Republicans should install a new Senate leader "whose moral compass is pointed toward improving race relations and not dredging up this nation's poor, polarizing performance of the past."

Gore, who is campaigning again for the presidency, is also demanding that Lott resign. Every hour brings another story about Lott.

Reporters found quotes of Lott gushing the same sort of praise 20 years ago. And another story was out Wednesday about Lott having tried to help Bob Jones University--which had until recently prohibited interracial dating--keep its federal tax-exempt status.

"Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy," Lott wrote in 1981, as a congressman in a court brief.

Chances are, most Americans have said something about race that they regret. It's ugly, but it's there and our country has been crippled by racism and by politicians who play the race card.

Still, Lott can't possibly lead the Senate after this. And Republicans should know that.

Democrats and the NAACP are providing a service to all Americans by pointing this out.

Most of us figure discrimination is un-American, because, at the heart of it, it is unfair, and Americans believe in fairness.

Civil rights legislation was finally passed in the 1960s because the majority understood it was fundamentally un-American to deny someone a seat at a lunch counter, a job, or a place in school because of their skin color.

And given the loud public outrage against Lott from Gore, Daschle, the NAACP and others, they must be eager to prove just how anti-racist they truly are.

So I expect them to hold a news conference and say that it is wrong to use skin color in deciding whether to hire someone, or promote them, or give them a contract, or admit them to a university.